Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Fornication Weakens a Future Marriage
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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1 Corinthians 6:15-17
The biblical concept of husband and wife being "one flesh" is far more involved than many people think. This teaching has its origins in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Too many Christians pass this off as being merely an illustration of the marriage bond—that when a man and woman marry, the two become one. However, when Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:8, He states it in the negative: ". . . they are no longer two but one flesh," strengthening the principle beyond mere illustration. This phrase "one flesh" is used only seven times in the Bible: four times in the above three verses, as well as Matthew 19:5; Ephesians 5:31; and I Corinthians 6:16. This final scripture elevates the "one flesh" principle, revealing a spiritual correspondence. How sacrilegious it would be to try to force Christ into a union with a harlot! Yet, that is what members of the church do when they give themselves over to un-Christian behavior, since they have been joined to Christ by covenant. He is the Bridegroom, and the church is the Bride. Such iniquity, Paul suggests, is the spiritual counterpart to a married man having sexual relations with a woman who is not his wife. Coitus—whether inside or outside of marriage—binds a man and woman as one flesh. Joined in verse 16 is derived from the Greek word kolláo, which means exactly the same thing as the Hebrew word dabaq in Genesis 2:24: "to glue together," "to cleave," "to adhere." Paul is plainly stating that, as the conjugal relations of a couple bind them together like glue, so also does the illicit act of a man and a harlot unite them as one flesh. In the Old Testament, writers often used forms of the verb "to know" as a euphemism for the sexual act (see Genesis 4:1; I Samuel 1:19; etc.). This "knowing" suggests that the actual intercourse is but the physical sign of the greater personal and emotional intimacy that is shared—even with a prostitute. "Uncovering the nakedness" of another, as is written throughout Leviticus 18, is such an intimate act that it creates a bond between the two participants. Too many people of this generation think of sex as cheap. Since the publication of the Kinsey Report in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the doors of promiscuity have been flung wide open, spawning the sexual revolution. Nowadays, it raises few eyebrows that some have multiple sexual partners, even before graduating from high school! God does not consider the sexual union of man and wife as cheap. As the author of Hebrews writes, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). To Him, it is so valuable that every time a person engages in it, he more intimately binds himself to his spouse, making marriage even more precious. Clearly, the "one flesh" principle is vital to Christian marriage. However, the sexual aspect of this principle should not distract us because, in fact, the focus is on the closeness of union or togetherness. Without using the term "one flesh" again, the apostle expands on how this principle applies to marriage in I Corinthians 6:18-20; 7:2-4. He writes, "You are not your own" (I Corinthians 6:19), and "You do not have authority over your body, but your spouse does" (I Corinthians 7:4, paraphrased). This is a major Christian understanding, one that separates it from marriages in other religions. Once married—once joined as a unit—the individuals in the covenant (husband and wife, male and female) are subsumed within the bond. To use a sports analogy, the team becomes more important than the individual players. The principle of "one flesh" leads to absolute togetherness or unity—living, thinking, planning, working as one. This is obviously the ideal. It should not embarrass anyone or make anyone feel like a failure if this kind of total oneness is not present in his or her own marriage. It may never happen. Even so, God expects married couples to work toward the goal of being so committed to the relationship, so much in love with each other, so willing to work harmoniously together, that they function as a perfectly oiled unit, as it were. We should never forget that marriage is a type of something greater! What does God want of us? To be one spirit with Him (I Corinthians 6:17)! The marriage relationship, where a man and a woman come together as one flesh, is a training program for the majority of us to learn how to be one with Him. If we cannot be one flesh with the person closest to us, how can we hope to be one spirit with God? Marriage is a primary spiritual testing ground for us to prepare to be the Bride of Jesus Christ our Savior and to be one with God. Thus, we learn how to work in tandem with another human being whom God has given to us as a mate. Like a yoke of oxen, we must learn to pull in the same direction and for the same purposes, straining to reach the same ultimate glory. How are we married couples doing? Are we pulling together? Or have we agreed to something like a 50/50 marriage? God would frown on a 50/50 marriage because it implies that one is willing to meet his spouse only halfway. God desires us to give everything up to the other—so much that we no longer even own ourselves! Each spouse owns the other. That is surrendering a great deal, but it is also receiving much in return. This is as good as it gets, humanly speaking. The perfect marriage is one in which each partner is wholly committed to the other and to the relationship. Each mate is striving to the utmost to live according to the will of God by showing true love—outgoing concern—for the other. And the perfect mate is the loving Christian giving his all to develop God's character both in himself and in his spouse.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Seven)
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1 Corinthians 11:3
The apostle Paul states an order of authority established by God that we need to understand. By means of the parallel between deity and mankind in God's order, Paul shows that a wife's submission to her husband in marriage does not imply her inferiority. How? In the parallel, Christ is not inferior to God the Father. All that God's order defines in this case is subordination. As the Father and Son are equally divine, the husband and wife are equally human. Even as the Father and Son have different roles in their relationship, so do the husband and wife in God's purposes for the family. In terms of government, there is a distinctive and deliberate similarity between the two organizations. Government is merely a system of operation, a means of directing and controlling so that the purposes of an organization are achieved. Though the Son is one with the Father, being of the same substance, power, and glory, He nonetheless voluntarily submits to the Father. In human marriage, husband and wife, like the Father and Son, are also essentially the same. In marriage, the submission of a woman to her husband is also intended to be voluntary. It is at this juncture that Satan, using men he controls through subtle deceits, has dealt a devastating blow to our culture. “Humanist” is a descriptor given to those who have abandoned a belief in God and religion. Some people refer to such people as “secularists.” Most of them claim atheism. Many of them are university-educated and earn salaries that place them in upper-middle-class income brackets. They also tend to be in positions of authority in government, business, education, and entertainment. Their reputations in the community often carry a great deal of influence. However, having abandoned God, their true spirituality and morality are terribly skewed, making their influence anti-God. Satan, using the humanists' influence, has convinced a large percentage of the public that sex and love are the same, a major departure from what was once generally believed in American culture. Sex and love are not equivalent. Love is so much greater in importance than sex that there is no adequate comparison. Humanists have also managed to convince many that everything is morally irrelevant. This, too, is untrue, but many fail to think it through. In reality, moral irrelevance actually drives marriages apart. In God's standard of morality, He is quite specific. For example, within marriage, sex is totally, completely, and absolutely limited to one's legal partner in that specific marriage. There are no exceptions. We find another restriction in I Corinthians 7:3-4: Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Even before marriage, both the man's and the woman's body belongs to their future spouses. Their bodies are not theirs to “just play around with.” This teaches us that fornication contributes to weakening a marriage that has not even occurred yet! Each partner in a marriage belongs to the other even before the marriage takes place. It is therefore each person's responsibility to preserve the body's sexual purity for the one he or she will marry.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Six)
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Hebrews 13:4
In the United States, marriage has been under assault for many years, at least for the last five or six decades. We could perhaps pinpoint the publication of the Kinsey Report in the early 1950s as a starting point of the major offensive against marriage. Very quickly after that, the sexual revolution lurched into full swing, launching the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While we tend to confine this to the 1960s, that era has never really ended but only transformed over the years. Millions are using their "sexual freedom" to dally with multiple partners before marriage—and continuing the practice even after saying, "I do." On January 1, 1970, California's no-fault divorce law went into effect, and before long many other states followed suit, easing divorce. In the same decade, feminism reared its head in two major efforts: the legalization of abortion and the push for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. Abortion—of which there are about a million performed each year—made the consequences of illicit sexual activity easier to avoid. The next decade saw the onset of AIDS, early on traced to perverse sexual activity among homosexuals, and the rise of the homosexual movement, which has pursued such goals as homosexual rights, hate-crimes legislation, and most recently, homosexual "marriage" and transsexualism. Along with AIDS, gonorrhea, and syphilis, at least 25 new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)—some of which are viral like AIDS—have ravaged many who have participated in the "sexual revolution." Modern medicine cannot really "cure" any of these, only make the symptoms more bearable (although antibiotics can kill Chlamydia and gonorrhea, scars and sometimes infertility may result). These diseases have reached pandemic proportions, as 15.3 million new STD infections happen each year, including over three million in teens. All this so-called progress has its effect on marriage. In addition, we cannot forget that potentially huge problems are inherent simply in two different people trying to create a life together. One that should not be minimized is each mate's unique set of sins and weaknesses that must be overcome. Everyone has "baggage," and when a man and a woman try to make a marriage work, they must be prepared to deal with such potential "skeletons in the closet" and their aftermaths.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part One)
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